Forging Zero (28 page)

“The
Dhasha?” Joe asked.

Underwater, Representative
Na’leen made a face.  “
We can duplicate Takki genes, but it is true…the
Dhasha are beyond our capabilities.  They and the Jreet are some of the only
ones.  Our scientists believe that with the Dhasha, it is because of the
chemical composition of their scales—if they are even a chemical at all.  They
certainly defy all logical explanation.  They are almost as mysterious as an
Ooreiki’s oorei.
”

Joe was just starting to relax
into the conversation when Representative Na’leen said,
“So did Kihgl
mention any of this to you, before he disappeared?  It would seem…odd…that you
served underneath him and he never mentioned it.”

Joe tensed all over again, not
liking the way the Huouyt’s excited exuberance seemed to slough away, leaving
utter, rapt attention.  Almost as if it were a switch that he had flipped, a
mask he’d put on to put Joe at ease.

“Uh, Kihgl didn’t say a lot,” Joe
lied.  “He’s an ornery old bastard.”

“Another lie!”
Representative Na’leen snapped, lunging up out of the bath.  At his raised
voice, Joe heard the dry slither of something invisible moving closer to the
central pedestal.  He swallowed, hard, his eyes flickering to the corners of
the empty room.

“I
am your only way home, Joe Dobbs,”
Representative
Na’leen continued, above-water, now.  His flat, fishy blue-white eyes were once
again mirror-hard. 
“You please me and I need but say the word and you shall
be escorted back to Earth with Congress’s deepest regrets.”

Joe
hesitated, his heart pounding.  More than anything, he wanted to go back home. 
He wanted to see his family.  Even now, his fingers itched for the Swiss Army
knife, which he had made smooth by rubbing it every night before bed as he
thought of his family.

“
Perhaps
a few more days in that putrid air will help you remember.
”  Representative
Na’leen flicked his paddle-shaped tentacle in an abrupt dismissal. 
Immediately, Joe could sense the Jreet in the room moving toward him.

“Wait,”
Joe said.  “He did say something.”

Na’leen’s
eyes sharpened to the steely-blue edges of razors.  “
Tell me.
”

Joe,
who had been planning on telling Representative Na’leen everything about
Kihgl’s odd behavior, saw something in the Huouyt’s electric gaze that made him
change his mind.  “He said nobody tells the Fourfold Prophecy more than once.”

“Interesting,”
Representative Na’leen said.  He did not sound interested. 
“Come
back if you remember more.  If your information interests me enough, I might be
able to find a way to bring your illegal recruitment to light.  Until then,”
he motioned at the door and suddenly two massive, scarlet, serpentine Jreet
appeared beside Joe, so close he could touch them,
“You have a squad to
command.”
  He said the last with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Joe
bristled with anger.  The casual way Representative Na’leen dismissed the Army
reminded him of adults back on Earth who had never had to sleep in a tent in
their lives—people who got to take a shower every day and complained about the
high price of steak when Joe’s father was writing letters in a dusty,
scorpion-filled ditch and eating his meals out of a sun-baked plastic pouch.

He
doesn’t want to help me,
Joe realized.
  As soon
as he gets what he wants, he’ll forget about me.
 

…just
like Libby had tried to tell him.

Still,
a part of him was screaming to tell the Huouyt everything.  He wanted to go
home more than anything.  He knew all he had to do was tell Na’leen about
Kihgl’s prophecies and Na’leen would be satisfied.

Then
the two visible Jreet—which towered over him like forty-foot man-cobras with
massive, diamond-shaped heads bearing those weird, ribbed hollows reminiscent
of bat ears—slid into place beside the Representative’s pool and forced Joe
back with the butts of their spears.  As Joe was stumbling backwards, a third
Jreet took him roughly by the wrist and casually yanked him away from the pool
with enough brutal force to tear his arm off, had he applied a fraction of an
ounce more pressure.

The
Ooreiki were strong.  They could do things like crush the back ends of pickup
trucks and hurl two-hundred-pound men twenty feet in a fit of rage.

Yet
with that one, halfhearted motion, the Jreet had made Joe’s Ooreiki kidnappers
look like stunted infants in comparison. 

Turning
to face his new aggressor, Joe experienced an uncomfortable wave of vertigo
when he stared at the place the creature should have been.  He
knew
an
alien stood there beside him, but he couldn’t
see
it.  The invisible
Jreet gave him a violent shove and propelled him down the ramp and to the door
of the chamber.  A moment later, another invisible fist grabbed him by the
throat—swallowing his entire neck in a single scaly hand—and began dragging him
through the hall.  Joe, disoriented and fighting panic, stumbled in the alien’s
grip, lurching through the silken drapery to the main hall, struggling to
remain upright.  The Jreet continued to hold him by the throat, casually towing
Joe along, giving Joe no choice but to add his stumbling footsteps to the dry
slithering sounds of the huge snake-body sliding on the glassy black floor
directly beside and behind him.

Zol’jib
was standing outside.  The Huouyt made a curt sound to the invisible Jreet
escorting Joe, and the scaly fist around his neck released him suddenly.  The
dry, whispery sound of the Jreet’s scales on glass as it moved away left Joe’s
heart pounding.

They
could be anywhere,
he thought, his brain utterly
balking at the idea that he
could not see
a creature obviously the size
of an elephant.

“Come,”
the Huouyt said sharply, making Joe jump.  Zol’jib then turned and led Joe back
through the lavish apartments toward the staircase.  Joe’s lungs cringed once
they stepped back through the doors and into the planet’s natural air.  The
pilot had returned with the hovercraft by the time they climbed back out onto
the rooftop. 

The
shape to Joe’s left as he followed Zol’jib up the stairs caught his attention. 
A smallish Jreet was impaled, long-ways, on a stake on the roof, a pool of
bluish fluid congealing beneath him.  The creature’s two powerful front limbs
were tied together at each joint, its head yanked back and tied to its tail,
the stake protruding from its cream-colored midsection. 

“Jreet
are much less forgiving teachers than the Ooreiki,” Zol’jib said, noticing
Joe’s stare.  “Even more so than the Huouyt.  That’s the one we saw earlier.” 

Remembering
the brief flash of red that Joe had seen on the stairs, he frowned at the tiny
Jreet.  “What did he do?”

Zol’jib
made a dismissive gesture.  “He allowed his energy shield to drop within an
outsider’s vision.  He was punished.”

Joe
stared at the corpse contorted on the stake and swallowed hard at the Jreet
idea of ‘punishment.’  “That’s…rough,” he whispered, suddenly not feeling too
good about his own training.

His
escort seemed unconcerned.  “That’s
Jreet
.  Be grateful Humans are too
frail to serve under them.”  He motioned for Joe to hurry up and follow him.

The
Jreet shuddered as Joe passed.

“Is it
still
alive?
” Joe whispered.

Zol’jib
scoffed.  “Of course.  He can live for days like that.  If he survives long
enough, the Sentinels might cut him down and allow him to return to duty.” 
Zol’jib eyed the suffering creature and flicked a downy, paddle-like tentacle
in dismissal.  “Judging by how much blood he’s already lost, though, I doubt
he’ll make it.”

Joe
swallowed down bile.  “Why do they do that?”

Zol’jib
looked unconcerned.  “They’re Jreet.”  As if that was the answer to everything. 
“Now get on the haauk
.
  We’re distracting him.  The longer we stand
here, the less likely he’ll be able to save himself.”

Already
hating the idea that he was partially to blame for the Jreet’s misfortune, Joe hurriedly
climbed aboard the haauk
,
still staring at the unfortunate trainee.  He
could feel its small yellow eyes watching him as he departed with the Huouyt.  In
moments, they were out of sight, flying through the civilian side of Alishai.

The
barracks appeared through the reddish haze, distinguishable from the civilian
buildings by the lack of elevators running up the sides, as well as the fact it
was only nine stories high when the buildings around it soared into the
hundreds.  No brightly-clad Ooreiki civilians ran errands along the balconies
encircling it, and the only platforms nearby were the ones speeding over the
top of it, going to other civilian towers.

The
Huouyt lowered the ship onto the sixth story balcony.

Battlemaster
Nebil saw them arrive and moved to intercept them.

“What
are you doing with my recruit?”
Nebil demanded of
the Huouyt.

“Returning
him to you,”
Zol’jib said, sounding absolutely
unconcerned with the shorter, stockier Ooreiki.

Battlemaster
Nebil turned his sticky brown stare on Joe, but said nothing more as the Huouyt
unloaded him from their craft and took back to the air.  He waited until the platform
had disappeared before speaking again.

“What
did they want?”

“Na’leen
wanted me to tell him about Kihgl,” Joe muttered, staring out at the city after
them.

Nebil
was silent so long that Joe turned to look at him.  The Ooreiki was staring at
Joe, his sudah deathly still.

“You
spoke with a member of the Tribunal?”
  There was
something akin to…fear…in the hardened battlemaster’s rumpled brown face.

“Yeah,”
Joe said.  “He was interested in Kihgl.”

Nebil
didn’t stop staring. 
“Congressional Representatives don’t waste their time
with secondary commanders.  It’s beneath them.”

“Well,
that’s what he wanted to talk about,” Joe said, feeling smug that, for once,
Nebil looked awed by him.  “You don’t want to believe me, you go ask him
yourself.  If they’ll even let you in the door.”

Battlemaster
Nebil gave him an unreadable stare.  Then, without taking his eyes from Joe, he
held up the bluish film of paper that the Huouyt had attached to his bed. 
“It
says you’ve been claimed to serve out the rest of your enlistment at
Representative Na’leen’s discretion.  It’s signed by An’a Zol’jib, Na’leen’s
head assassin.”
  Joe thrust it against Joe’s chest. 
“If I were you,
Zero, I’d be very careful how I step.”

Joe
took the piece of film and stared down at it, feeling queasy.  “He couldn’t
claim me because I got Squad Leader.”

Battlemaster
Nebil snorted. 
“If Na’leen had wanted you, the Training Committee would’ve
given you to him on a ruvmestin
haauk.
  He just changed his mind.”

As Joe
began to feel ashamed and sick, Nebil said,
“Get back inside.  Since you’re
already up and dressed, you can polish the walls until I return to wake the
rest of the platoon.  The rag is behind the door in the bathing chambers.”
 
At that, Battlemaster Nebil shoved him inside the barracks and locked the door
behind him.    Joe heard a dull thumping on the other side as Battlemaster
Nebil’s boots thudded against the stone staircase switchbacking down the side
of the building.

Feeling
like he’d been hit with a truck, Joe went to his task.  The glassy obsidian
walls were already gleaming.  A visitor had to lean in close to see the
children’s fingerprints marring the glossy surface in the areas near the beds. 
 

Joe got
the rag from the alcohol-stinking baths and went to the wall above his
groundteam’s bed.  Maggie’s tiny fingerprints were everywhere.  Grimly, Joe
began wiping them away.

“What
happened?” Scott asked, and Joe realized he’d stayed up waiting for him.

“Go
back to sleep,” Joe said.  “You’ve still got some time.”

“Joe!”
Maggie squealed.  She lunged from the covers and grabbed his arm, tugging it
away from the wall.  “Libby said you were gonna leave us.”

Joe was
still feeling the urge to run back to the Huouyt and tell him everything he
knew about Kihgl at the chance Na’leen would be pleased with him.  Guilt
stabbed at him and he avoided looking at her.

“They
didn’t give him the chance to leave,” Libby said, glaring at him from the bed. 
“If they’d given him the chance, he wouldn’t be here.”

Before
Joe could respond, Monk said, “Shut up, Libby.  He’s not gonna leave us.  He
said so.  He’s gonna help us all get home.”

“Yeah,”
Maggie chimed.  “You’re just a big stupidhead, Libby.”

Libby
lowered her eyes, accepting their judgment.  Seeing it, Joe felt ashamed of
himself all over again.  He set down his rag and cleared his throat.  “Libby
was right,” he said softly.  “I would’ve gone.”

Libby’s
head jerked up and she stared at him, her brown eyes hurt and confused.  It was
obvious she had wanted to be wrong.  Joe looked back at the rag he was holding.